In June 2011, Susan Spencer-Wendel learned she had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)—Lou Gehrig’s disease—an irreversible condition that systematically destroys the nerves that power the muscles. She was forty-four years old, with a devoted husband and three young children, and she had only one year of health remaining.Susan decided to live that year with joy.She quit her job as a journalist … as a journalist and spent time with her family. She built an outdoor meeting space for friends in her backyard. And she took seven trips with the seven most important people in her life. As her health declined, Susan journeyed to the Yukon, Hungary, the Bahamas, and Cyprus. She took her sons to swim with dolphins, and her teenage daughter, Marina, to Kleinfeld’s bridal shop in New York City to see her for the first and last time in a wedding dress.
She also wrote this book. No longer able to walk or even to lift her arms, she tapped it out letter by letter on her iPhone using only her right thumb, the last finger still working.
However, Until I Say Good-Bye is not angry or bitter. It is sad in parts—how could it not be?—but it is filled with Susan’s optimism, joie de vivre, and sense of humor. It is a book about life, not death. One that, like Susan, will make everyone smile.
From the Burger King parking lot where she cried after her diagnosis to a snowy hot spring near the Arctic Circle, from a hilarious family Christmas disaster to the decrepit monastery in eastern Cyprus where she rediscovered her heritage, Until I Say Good-Bye is not only Susan Spencer-Wendel’s unforgettable gift to her loved ones—a heartfelt record of their final experiences together—but an offering to all of us: a reminder that “every day is better when it is lived with joy.”
more
This is a very inspirational book of this authors life story while dying of ALS. Her choice to live & die with joy is a lesson to us all. If she can choose joy as her body withers, why can we not make the same choice every day?
Her last journey was very inspirational. It also shows what a good partner and money can do to ease that journey.
I am not the right person to write this review. I will gladly write reviews for books that I could passionately recommend to my friends using my own criteria for what makes a book outstanding and I would be willing to use your system of rating a book that I would rate a 4. I care too much about writers to ever publicly give a book a 3. It’s too much like telling a mother she has produced a baby with average appeal which would say more about me than baby (book).
Like the author, I too am living out a shortened calendar. I purchased the book hoping it would give me some ideas about how to handle the last year of my life. I was happy for her that she achieved her goals but her way was not practical for those of us on limited budgets. I do admire her pluck however. God bless her and her family.
I read this book and I cried in parts, very poignant. No one is guaranteed a happy ending. This author is making the best of a bad situation
Thought provoking about living and dying.